Saying that the only reason to get a d800 is if you print big is such a myth. It has better autofocus, better dynamic range and better high ISO than the d700. If he retouches his portraits, the extra resolution helps greatly with that. It's why fashion and beauty photographers shot the 5d2, D3X or medium format. Detail is great for retouching skin and makeup and the super dynamic range makes editng files super easy, even with high contrast lighting. It's safe to say that the d800 has better image quality in every way than the d700. Plus more freedom to crop, video, dual card slots etc etc.

You also don't need a super fast computer to process d800 files. That's another myth. Once they're imported into Lightroom or copied to your hard drive (which does take a bit longer) they can process at exactly the same speed as any other files. Exporting also takes a little longer, but it's not a huge difference. It's not like your editing process suddenly becomes painful.

Storage - partly true, but hard drive prices, CF and SD cards are always falling and capacity is always getting bigger. It's the natural evolution of things, and as DIGITAL photographers, your computer is an essential bit of gear just like a lens or fllash. A 1tb hard drive costs about £65, and that would hold 22,000 d800 raw files. Even with a seriously heavy workload and keeping all files, you'll maybe fill two drives a year at the most. Not exactly a crippling amount of money or time.

As for lenses, again I disagree. The cheap DX 35/1.8 is great on the d800 in FX mode. I've also used the 85/1.8D and can't complain. It's very sharp.

Just my findings anyway from using the d800 for about 6 weeks now. I think the story that you only need the d800 for massive printing and you need to buy every AF-S prime to get good results and that you'll set your computer on fire.. I haven't found any of that to be true!

I agree with u007

I moved from a lifelong love with Canon to the D800 because of how much more camera it really is. The extra cropability and DR is alone enough reason to own this camera. You want high res files you have to have large file sizes. You don't want them that large then use a 1.2 or DX crop mode and get smaller files. They are still from the same sensor and with the extra DR and amazing quality. If you really don't need/want t then the D700 is certainly no slouch but the D800 beats it in almost every respect and FPS, shoot DX with AA batteries in a grip and get 6FPS although truthfully, I have done just fine with the 4. I was never really one to just spray a scene by holding down the shutter. I always tried to be more selective with my shooting.
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Michael Kaplan
http://www.pbase.com/mkaplan
See my profile for equipment list